VITERBO – A brilliant WeCOM-Ortoetruria played a solid and highly intense match and won on the parquet of the Nuovo Basket L’quilano, taking a heavy victory for their ranking.
The match began not under the best auspices for Stella Azzurra who, after a few minutes from the start, found themselves 0-10 down and seemed unable to stem the offensive strength of a super Cassar and the excellent percentages of the local wingers. Saputo called the inevitable timeout and explained to his team how to decisively change pace. The boys responded as best they could and closed the gap, but again conceded some good play to the Abruzzo team who closed the first 10′ at 21-14. A completely different story in the second quarter, with the Biancostellati scoring a truly excellent performance in both shooting and defense: 27-16 and +4 at half-time (41-37).
Third period with two faces, with the Stars pushing on the accelerator again in the first 6′ and placing a break for the maximum advantage (53-43) and with the hosts responding with a good reaction that brought them back to just one possession to recover (56-58) at the end of the third quarter. The match, beautiful and exciting, further raised the level and WeCOM-Ortoetruria brought out all its best characteristics: excellent all-round defense, speed of ball circulation and the hot hand of its shooters. L’Aquila managed to keep up with their opponents with some good plays that brought them to -1 (66-67) with 6′ to go, but the Viterbo team made no mistakes and scored a deadly 12-3 which effectively closed the match. Last two minutes in total control and a well-deserved victory for a perfectly fielded and extremely convincing Stella Azzurra team.
“We finish our first round with a positive record – declares coach Saputo – and we are satisfied because in any case with the start we had and the problems we had it was not a given. We are really very happy to have finished well with six victories in the last eight games, constantly growing from the point of view of the game both in attack and defence. Now the break, certainly too long for the two consecutive rest periods, however comes at the right time because we need to rest. We are absolutely eager to start again on January 18th, hoping for our home against Avellino to play a great match and have lots of people come to watch us.”
The performance of the whole team was truly excellent, with a mention to Liesis, MVP of the match and to Bastone with a double double (14-11).
A special thank you to Nuovo Basket L’Aquilano and its president Roberto Nardecchia for the welcome and the sincere consolidated friendship between our two clubs.
WeCOM-Ortoetruria Stella Azzurra Viterbo – Nuovo Basket L’Aquilano 81-72 (14-21/27-16/17-19/23-16).
VITERBO: Calvi 5, Bertollini, Bertini 5, Giancarli 10, Moretti 9, Albenzi, Liesis 23, Meroi, Visentin, Bastone 14, Casanova 12, Ousman ne.
Coach: F. Saputo.
Assistant: J. Vitali.
NUOVO BASKET AQUILANO 72: Ronca 17, Bologna ne, Di Paolo 9, Ianuale 11, Nardecchia, Santomaggio 2, Cecchi 8, Cassar 19, Cabas ne, Rita ne, Tuccella 6:
Coach: F. D’Addio.
Rebounds: Cassar 14, Bastone 11.
Assist: Cassar 5, Moretti and Bertini 4.
